Minimum wage: We’ll not accept anything short of N30,000 from governors

The President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said on Thursday that the excuse by some state governors that they could not pay the new N30,000 minimum wage was not tenable.

Wabba, who said that the minimum wage was binding having been signed into law, said that workers would not accept anything short of N30,000 minimum wage from any governor.

The NLC President, represented by an ex-officio of the Congress, Comrade Maureen Onyia-Ekwuazi, spoke in Ado Ekiti at the Ekiti NLC Delegate Conference, where a former Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities, Ekiti State University Branch, Comrade Olatunde Kolapo, emerged as the new NLC chairman in Ekiti State.

Wabba said:

“Once the minimum wage bill had been signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, it has become a law and we won’t allow any governor to circumvent the law. What we asked for was a living wage and we can’t allow anybody to shortchange our members”.

The NLC boss urged the new labour leaders in Ekiti State to be resolute and committed in the struggle for improved welfare of their members, which he charged them to do without compromise.

Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had at the opening of the conference raised hope of his government’s readiness to pay the new minimum wage to workers in the state.

Fayemi, represented by the Chief of Staff, Mr Biodun Omoleye, said the newly elected leadership of labour and trade unions in the state would soon be invited for a meeting on the modalities to ensure the payment.